


it does not suffice

by singmyheart



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Infidelity, Slut Shaming Alexander Hamilton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-10 12:09:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6984511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singmyheart/pseuds/singmyheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Affair</i> was a strange word to toss around, old-fashioned. She considered others: <i>tryst</i> made it sound like a one-off. <i>Fling</i>, too casual. <i>Carrying on</i> was a term her mother might have used.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

 

There was something about the summertime, Eliza thought. It was the heat, or something in the air. Things tended to happen, not just things but Things. She had said as much to Alex, once, tried to explain but couldn't quite find the words for exactly what she meant. _Well, we can't all be you,_ she'd said.

 _Good thing,_ he'd said, and smiled.

 

*

 

He was gone when she woke up. He was physically there, sure, and awake, but looking through her. He twitched when she laid a hand on his shoulder. “Alex?” she said, soft. “Babe?”

No response. She hadn't expected one, really. His dark eyes were glassy, distant. Eliza stifled a sigh and got out of bed; one of them had to.

It had been a while since this had happened, but it had happened. Eliza padded barefoot into the bathroom, brushed her teeth thinking about the couple of weeks ahead of her. He wouldn't sleep, wouldn't eat, wouldn't write. Wouldn't talk to her save a single apology, an “I'm sorry” half-mumbled into her shoulder one night when she got into bed. The knowledge didn't make it any easier, it was just - how it was.

She went through her morning routine, shower, coffee; when she returned to the bedroom Alex hadn't moved. It was almost funny, how still he was. She came around to his side of the bed; he was lying immobile under the pile of blankets (how he could run so warm all the time and sleep like that in the heart of summer, she'd never understand. Even with the fan on and the window open, even this early in the morning it was sweltering). “I'm headed to work,” she told him, “I'll be home a little early. Love you.”

“Love you,” he murmured, nearly inaudible. She dropped a kiss on his forehead, suppressed a little minnow of disgust when her nose brushed his hair; inhaled the stale scent that meant he hadn't washed it in days.

Studio 1780 was Eliza's pride and joy. It had been the only shop like it on the block when she'd first opened her doors two years previously, and though similar places had begun to pop up recently, there were none quite like hers, she often thought with more than a little pride. It was part espresso bar, part vintage shop; small and stocked with a carefully curated selection of pre-1980s clothes and accessories, local art, handmade jewelry, that sort of thing. The coffee was locally roasted, the scones and biscotti sourced from bakeries in the neighborhood.

Eliza had no sooner flipped the sign to “open” than Adrienne arrived in a cloud of silk and floral perfume, greeted her with a chipper “Morning!” and immediately slid behind the counter to pull herself a shot of espresso.

“I'm gonna have to take off a little early,” Eliza told her, took a seat on one of the high stools lining the bar. “That okay?”

Adrienne waved a hand. “Of course, love,” she said, and then frowned a little at whatever Eliza's face was doing. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” she said, and reconsidered. “Well. Alex is just - having a day.” Adrienne nodded, tsked sympathetically. She wasn't entirely unfamiliar with Alex’s days. “I just wanna be around, you know.” Eliza sighed.

“Of course,” Adrienne repeated, a little softer. “You'll give him our love, yes?”

“Will do,” Eliza said, tried for a smile, didn't quite manage it.

 

She left the shop in Adrienne’s more-than-capable hands during their afternoon lull and headed back to her quiet apartment; the air conditioning hit her like a wall, a welcome respite from the thick August heat. Hardwood floor in the entryway cool on her bare feet.

Alex was waiting for her in the kitchen, which was a surprise. Sitting at their little two-person table in his sweatpants, coffee steaming and forgotten in front of him. “You're up,” she said, “hi. Are you hungry?”

“No,” he said, voice a little hoarse as if from lack of use. He looked actually, physically ill, his hair lank and greasy, a greyish tinge to his skin. She crossed the room to him and laid a hand on his forehead to see if he was feverish; he closed his eyes at the touch, just for a moment, wet his lips. “Will you sit down, please,” he said, flat.

Eliza dragged the other chair closer to him and sat; he flinched a little at the scrape of the legs over the floor. Her mind was wheeling through the possibilities - he's sick, someone died, anything - but her voice was steady. “Babe. What's wrong?”

He took a deep, shaky breath; the silence stretched on long enough that she opened her mouth to ask again but then he said it: “I had an affair.”

She waited. Stunned. He kept talking but her ears were ringing, she couldn't hear the words. She held up a hand and his mouth snapped shut. “I don't,” she said, “I literally don't understand what you're saying. Start over.”

He glanced up, eyes searching hers for a brief second, and back down, staring at the floor as he continued, talking fast. “I slept with someone. More than once, last year. But it's over now, it's done, she's - I'm sorry, Betsey, I'm so fucking sorry, I love y--”

“Stop,” she said and he stopped. Took a breath. “Don't tell me you're sorry.”

“Last year,” he said again, went on quickly like he was just trying to get it over with, the threat of tears imminent. “I - she made a pass at me and after that I thought, never again, _god,_  I felt so awful. I wanted to tell you then, fuck, I swear I would have, but it just. Kept happening. It got so out of hand so quickly and I just - I couldn't -” He stopped, seemed to choke.

She'd never seen him at a loss for words. Dimly, it occurred to her there were questions she should probably be asking. “Who is she? Somebody I know?”

Another heavy pause, another shaky exhale. “Maria Reynolds,” he said.

“Maria - Jesus fucking Christ, Alex. What is she, nineteen?”

“Twenty-three,” he muttered; she ignored that.  

“Did you bring her here?”

She knew the answer before he said it, very quietly. “Yes.” Alex folded forward, hunched over and stared at his knees, ran a hand through his dirty hair, started crying for real. _Ugly,_ Eliza thought with a sudden, awful clarity.

She stood, not knowing what she was intending to do, not really - but she jarred the table with her hip, hard, and it seemed to happen in slow motion. The full mug tipped, spilled hot coffee into Alex’s lap, then hit the floor and shattered. Alex was up in an instant, hissing in pain, yanking his soaked sweats down and off; his bare foot came down on the broken china with a sickening crunch. “Fuck,” he choked out, loud and sharp. Sat back down, held his foot a couple of inches off the floor a little awkwardly. A rivulet of blood ran down his heel, Technicolor bright, and dripped onto the tile.

At a glance, there wasn't all that much blood and nothing was sticking out of him; Eliza prayed he wouldn't need stitches. She marched past him without a word into the bathroom for the first aid kit, and when she came back he seemed to have caught his breath, somewhat. She crossed to the freezer, wrapped a handful of ice cubes in a dishtowel and handed it to him. “Thanks,” he murmured, pressed it gingerly to the splotchy red burn on his thigh. She sat and pulled his foot into her lap and he said, “no, it's fine, I can do it,” but it was half-hearted at best and he didn't fight her.

The cut was long, right across the ball of his foot, but shallow, thank god. She cleaned and dressed it quickly, practiced, and let him go; he thanked her again, quietly, rested his heel carefully on the strut of his chair. Eliza stood and surveyed the mess of the kitchen: used alcohol swabs in a pile on the table, Alex's coffee-stained sweatpants in a heap. A puddle of spilled coffee slowly mingling with his blood on the tile - sick twist low in her stomach at that - her favourite blue mug in pieces. She set about cleaning up and when she was done she turned to him, his sweats wadded up in her hand. “It's over, you said. With Maria.”

“Yes,” he said, voice cracking on the single word. “The second we found out about the baby…” The baby. And something broke in him in that instant: Alex went to his knees in front of her, heedless of his foot, pressed his face to her stomach and clutched at her waist and cried, big, wracking sobs. Muttered _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Betsey, love you, I'm sorry_ into the fabric of her dress. Over and over like a broken record until they stopped sounding like words.

Eliza realized, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she hadn't seen him this way since Jack died. It might have been worse then. Remembered him railing at God, holding him on their bathroom floor because he was throwing up from crying so hard, dehydrated and retching with the force of the sobs. It was such a vivid sense memory that she was blinking back tears now recalling it, breathing deep to will off the disgust, the nausea roiling low in her gut. Her hand was on the back of his neck out of habit, his skin clammy under her palm and his back shuddering with his ragged breaths. She was a little afraid he was going to start hyperventilating.

After some interminable minutes he started to calm down, quieted. There was a damp patch on the front of her dress when he sat back on his heels, wincing a little. She almost wanted to laugh, for one horrible second.

“Get up,” she said, and her voice caught. “Come on. Stand up.” He got up, leaned a little awkwardly on the counter trying not to put weight on his foot. Dragged both hands over his face, swiped angrily at his red-rimmed eyes. Wouldn't look at her, still. She studied the downturn of his mouth, the barely-there sweep of freckles on his nose, for a long moment, and then turned on her heel and left him standing there.

She tossed Alex's sweats into the hamper, sat on the unmade bed on her side. _One minute,_ she told herself. Breathed deep and counted sixty Mississippis and didn't cry. There was a spot of his blood on her skirt, drying brown.

 

*

 

**April 2010**

 

Eliza had been to dozens of weddings in her life, and they ran the gamut: church wedding, beach wedding, farm wedding. Semiformal to white-tie formal and everything in between. The ceremony that afternoon had lasted fifteen minutes, and the reception was in full swing, excellent food and better wine. Trust the new Mr. and Mrs. Lafayettes’ tastes to be impeccable.

She and Alex were, at present, taking a break from dancing (which he was terrible at, but she was pretty good, so they balanced out). They'd managed to snag a few minutes to themselves, at their empty table. She kicked off her shoes and put her sore feet in his lap.

He caught her looking around the room, admiring, smiled at her a little crookedly. It was beautiful, flowers everywhere, the decor all rich blues, pared-down and elegant in exactly the way she'd come to expect from Gil and Adrienne, fond as they were of the finer things. “Gorgeous, isn't it,” she said.

“It is,” Alex agreed. “Gil definitely knows how to throw a party.” He'd started the evening looking a little uncomfortable in his rented tux, out of sorts. The drink and the party had loosened him up considerably; he'd shed his jacket, and his long hair was just starting to come loose around his face, his mouth a little red from the wine. He was beautiful, just then. “Maybe we should have one of these, you and me,” he said. Casual.

For a second Eliza wasn't sure she'd heard him right. She sat up, put her feet down. “Are you drunk,” she said, faintly.

“No,” he said, evenly, and he wasn't; she knew he'd switched to water a while ago. He didn't look nervous, or at all ruffled, really, which meant he was. He was just - watching her, this little smile on his face, laugh lines just starting to show around his eyes.

“Ask me,” she said.

He turned to her properly, took her hands in his. He was always so warm. “Marry me, Betsey,” he said, soft. “I'll get you a ring. I'll get you whatever you want.”

“Yes,” she said, “yes,” and he kissed her fingers and then her mouth, and she loved him, loved him. Loved him so fucking much, in that moment.

*

 

**present day**

 

Alex took to sleeping on the couch without Eliza asking. For days she stayed later than she needed to at the shop, anything to keep herself busy, to keep out of her oppressively still and quiet apartment, out of the bed she couldn't fall asleep in. Alex was always home when she came in at night (more than once she could tell he was faking sleep, like he hadn’t been waiting up for her).

It wasn’t that she was giving him the cold shoulder, exactly. She supposed it was a cliche for a reason, that she just couldn’t look at him without thinking of what he’d done. Maria Reynolds laid out on the couch, in their bed. Alex’s face between her legs, Maria’s fingers in his hair (he'd loved that, when they'd first started dating, would go down on Eliza for ages if she asked). Maria’s nails dug into his chest, riding him; bent over with her dark hair spilling across the kitchen table or the counter, him draped over her back, spitting filth and praises and curses into her ear. Kissing her with her taste thick on his tongue. The kinds of texts he’d used to send Eliza when they were first dating - the kind she couldn’t read in public for fear of blushing - the way his voice got when they were away from each other and had only phones or Skype, low and intimate like he was still beside her.

She could feel it like a physical thing, Maria’s presence in their apartment. In their marriage. She had been in Eliza's bed, in her shower, in her kitchen and now Alex was just some stranger who looked like her husband sleeping on her couch.

 

*

 

She wrestled with telling Angelica. She didn't doubt that Angelica would understand, commiserate, but the thought of putting everything into words was giving her pause. She couldn't tell Peggy; her younger sister’s brand of righteous anger didn't leave a lot of room for grey area. The situation was, simply put, Too Complicated; better not to bring it up unless she had to. She wondered, once, feeling slightly sick, whether Adrienne knew. They'd been in each other's wedding parties; it wasn't like it was completely out of the realm of possibility that Alex had told Gil. Her brain skittered away from the thought; the image of Alex confessing what he was doing - _I fucked up, Gil, what do I do -_ of Gil and Adrienne _pitying_ her... it was almost too much to bear. Adrienne wasn't acting any differently toward her as of late; if she knew, she wasn't letting on. Eliza wasn't comforted by that thought; that, or the persistent, nagging one that said, _you know him. You knew what you were getting into._

 

*

 

She kept a photo from their wedding on her bedside table. It had been taken toward the end of the night, their guests starting to filter out. Eight of them crowded together around a table: Angelica and Peggy on Eliza’s side, Jack and Hercules on Alex’s. Adrienne in Gil’s lap, still newlyweds themselves. Heels kicked off, makeup starting to fade, bowties hanging loose. The tabletop littered with empty glasses; Peggy had a flower from one of the centrepieces tucked behind her ear. All of them laughing, Jack leaning hard on Alex’s shoulder.

It struck her how much younger they all looked: though he was barely in his thirties now, Alex had bags dark as bruises under his eyes, a touch of grey in his beard. She wondered if Jack might have aged the same way.

She couldn't look at it now. Tucked the frame into the drawer of her nightstand, curled up on the bed with her laptop and opened Skype, called Angelica. “I'm very concerned for Peg,” Angelica said as soon as she picked up. “Are you getting these emails? She's going to keel over from stress before this party.” She shook her head, chuckling, adjusted herself in front of the camera.

“She brought it on herself,” Eliza pointed out, which was true: throwing a party for their parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary had been Peggy’s idea. Eliza felt a twinge of guilt; it was two weeks away now and she'd been so wrapped up in - things - with Alex it had completely slipped her mind. She resolved to email Peggy later.

“How are you, love?” Angelica said, warm as ever. “You know we haven't seen each other since Christmas? The kids are gonna forget what you look like.”

“I know, god.” Eliza bit her lip, considered. “Actually, on the subject of kids… I have news.” Angelica’s brow furrowed a little; the smile spread across her face slow, incredulous, but she waited for Eliza to say it. “Yeah. I'm pregnant, Ange.”

Angelica laughed, giddy, disbelieving; Eliza couldn't help but join her. It felt good to tell someone, felt good to have something good to tell. She allowed herself that, for the moment. “God,” Angelica said, “I was wondering when Alex was gonna make an honest woman out of you! Where is he, I wanna say hi.”

“He’s not here, I'll pass it along. That's - well, Alex is the other thing.” Angelica’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, shit, no,” Eliza corrected herself hastily, “he's just out running errands, he didn't - no. God, Ange, he didn't leave me.”

Angelica visibly relaxed. “What's up, then? He finish that novel of his, finally?”

Just do it, just rip off the band-aid, she thought. “No, he's - he cheated on me. Actually.”

“That mother _fucker,_ ” Angelica said, immediately and with great depth of feeling. She took a breath. “Shit. With who? What happened?”

Eliza took a couple of deep breaths of her own, a second to arrange her thoughts. “This woman - Maria, she lives in our neighborhood. She's married, but he's bad news, I think. She used to come into the shop once in a while, but. God, she must have stopped when Alex started - you know. Last year, that was.”

“Last _year.”_

“Yeah. Yeah. He told me a couple weeks ago, he said he ended it when we found out about the baby.” She had to laugh a little at how goddamn horrible that sounded, had to laugh or she'd cry. “God. Fuck.”

“What are you gonna do?” Angelica asked, gentled a fraction.

“I don't know,” Eliza admitted, helplessly. “I just keep thinking about - how didn't I see this coming? How did it go on for a _year_ , and I never knew?” An awful, unbearable thought occurred to her just then. “You didn't know about this, did you?”

“I'm going to pretend you didn't just ask me that,” Angelica said, stone-faced.

Eliza sighed. “Fuck - sorry. Sorry.”

Angelica softened, after a moment. “It’s okay, Liza.”

“Listen,” and she could hear the plea on the edge of her voice, “you can't tell anyone. I mean it. We're waiting on the baby thing, until I’m further along, but. John, Peg, mom and dad - just. Don't. I can't handle that. Let me figure out if I can fix this, first.”

Angelica sighed. “Yeah. No, of course. Whatever you want.”

“Please just make nice with him for a couple of days for this party, okay. I won't tell him you know, just keep it under your hat.” Angelica nodded, didn't look thrilled about it.  Eliza ran a hand through her hair, let out a long breath. Pushed it away for now. “I don't wanna talk about this anymore. What's going on with you?”

 

*

 

**eight weeks previously**

 

She was late. She was never late, didn't want to get her hopes up - but.

It was early; she'd slipped out of bed before Alex woke up. Walked down to the drugstore and back, locked herself in the bathroom.

Three different tests came back positive.

Okay. Eliza stared at them, lined up neatly on the edge of the sink. Heard Alex starting to stir in the bedroom, heard him come padding down the hall.

He knocked. “Babe?”

Her hands were shaking when she unlocked the door. He was in his boxers, bleary-eyed, hair sticking up on one side. He looked at her curiously. “You okay?”

She backed up to let him in, nodded at the sink. “Look,” she said.

He looked, peered into the mug, stared down at the tests, at the little blue plus signs on each one. Looked at her, disbelieving, open-mouthed. “You… ?”

“I'm pregnant, Alex,” she said, and laughed, giddy. He laughed with her, and then he swept her up in his arms so hard they almost went down.

“I love you,” he said into her hair, choked up. “I love you so much.” She said it, too, and he pulled back, took both her hands in his. Him getting misty was making her tear up. “We're gonna have a baby,” he said, in wonder.

“We're gonna have a baby,” she repeated, to feel the shape of the words in her mouth.

“I can't believe you peed in my Moby Dick mug,” he said, a little watery. She laughed, again, and he picked her up and carried her back to bed, and they stayed there, for a while.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter: bad sex (consensual, just not good) and a brief mention of abuse.

 

 

 

_Please join us for an anniversary celebration honoring Philip and Catherine Schuyler and forty years of marriage. Hosted by their children._

The invitation had been stuck to their fridge for weeks, simple and elegant cream cardstock held down by an I Love NY magnet. The wording - _hosted by their children -_ was charitable at best. An outright lie at worst. Peggy had done everything, kept her apprised with an increasingly longer chain of clipped, passive-aggressive emails, most of which Eliza had left unanswered. Since Alex had confessed ( _to the_ _affair,_ she made herself think the word, _he had an affair_ ) she hadn’t had room in her head for anything else.

 _Affair_ was a strange word to toss around, old-fashioned. She considered others: _tryst_ made it sound like a one-off. _Fling,_ too casual. _Carrying on_ was a term her mother might have used. In a fit of something insane she pictured telling her parents: _my husband, the crazy broke stubborn impossible love of my life, the one you didn’t want me to marry in the first place? He cheated on me and also I’m pregnant. Pass the salt._ The prospect of keeping their dirty laundry under wraps for the weekend was not an exciting one; she was tired just thinking about it.

 

*

 

The morning sickness had set in. Alex had found her curled up in front of the toilet the other morning, retching, dizzy with nausea. He'd brought her a glass of water, got down on the floor with her in his boxers without saying a word. He'd rubbed her back, big, soothing circles. Tentative, uncertainty written in every line of his face, like he was waiting for her to tell him to fuck off. She rested her head on his shoulder and they didn't talk and it was all right, for a little while.

Alex kept sleeping on the couch and Eliza kept sleeping in their bed - or not sleeping, really. Laid awake night after night staring at the ceiling, blankets kicked off, hot and uncomfortable. She thought about Maria Reynolds. Thought about her coming into the shop sometimes, browsing, making pleasant, easy conversation with Adrienne in her high-school French. Not buying anything, usually; a coffee or a scarf if it was on sale. Biting her lip at the price tags, looking wistfully at a dress or leather jacket.

Eliza thought about the yellowed bruises she'd seen sometimes ringing Maria’s slim wrists, or on her face, covered hastily with makeup. Wondered about James Reynolds, if he knew what she knew, if he cared; wondered if it made sense for her to pity the woman her husband had fucked.

 

*

 

The Thursday evening before they left Eliza closed up with Adrienne, hugged her and thanked her again for looking after the shop. “Promise you’ll call if you need anything,” she said for the hundredth time.

“Everything will be _fine,”_ Adrienne told her, firm, and shooed her out. “Now, go, have fun.”

She came home to Alex hunched over his laptop, writing for the first time in weeks, headphones on, beer sweating and forgotten on the coffee table. Went to bed but tossed and turned for hours, sweating, feeling like her skin didn’t fit; stared at her stomach and tried to imagine how it would look in a few months’ time. Tried to picture a little boy, a little Alex. Considered her parents, still so affectionate after four decades together; wondered how she and Alex would look in thirty-four years. She’d be sixty-three, Alex sixty-seven. Maybe they’d have grandkids on the way, by then.

She heard him in the kitchen well past two, humming to himself; the smell of his fried-egg sandwich made her dry heave. She didn’t sleep at all.

Alex was in the shower when she threw up for the first time that morning; she straightened up and spat in the sink, turned around to find him with his dripping wet face stuck out from behind the shower curtain. He grimaced at her sympathetically. “Okay?”

She nodded, weary. “Fine. Yeah.”

He studied her for a moment, gestured vaguely. “D’you want to… ?” He trailed off, unsure, something - regret, maybe - flickered across his face for a split second. She considered. The nausea was passing as quickly as it had come and the smell of his shampoo wasn't making her gag, which was a small blessing. So she rinsed with mouthwash and stripped and stepped into the shower with him.

She winced a little getting under the spray; Alex always liked his showers nearly hot enough to scald. It felt good, though, after a moment, like she could wash away the messy sick feeling of throwing up, scrub off her sleepless night. She reached around him for her shampoo and they were pressed close in the narrow space, wet skin on wet skin. The contact made her very aware that they’d barely touched in weeks. They were chest to chest, very close.

Eliza didn’t know who kissed who but suddenly they were and she was drowning, tangle of hot hands and tongues and teeth. She ached with it, how familiar he was, the slick desperate slide of his hands over her and the deluge that fell from his mouth nearly the second she touched him, _fuck babe I miss this, miss you, come on._ It wasn’t enough to chase out the bright lurid string of ugly thoughts in her head: that he’d had Maria Reynolds here just like this. That this was all he was good at, fucking and talking. The early days of their relationship when he’d hustle her into bed to avoid a fight. He picked her up, pressed her back against the wall of the shower, fucked her like that, sloppy and starving. The tile wall cool and solid on her back and Alex so warm at her front; she was hot enough to burn up, his fingers like brands. The orgasm coiling in her belly like a gathering storm but even when he worked his hand between them to touch her it wouldn’t crest. She grit out _are you gonna come, come on,_ and Alex laughed a little wildly, fixed his teeth in her neck and mumbled _you first._ She closed her eyes and tried to let it go, clenched around his cock and pushed into his fingers and it wouldn’t happen, stubbornly held off. So for the first time, only time, she faked it, gasped his name and clung to his shoulders and he went harder, open mouth on her neck, came with a harsh noise tearing out of his throat like it hurt.

Alex put her down on shaky legs, heart hammering; she didn’t look at him.

 

*

 

The train ride was uneventful; Alex put on his noise-canceling headphones and dozed off almost immediately. Eliza drank her ginger ale and prayed her stomach would behave, tried to read the novel she’d brought with her and found she couldn’t concentrate. So she watched the city pass them by, stuck on the morning, the frustrating ache between her legs and the angry red marks from her nails on the back of Alex’s neck.

Next thing she knew he was shaking her awake, gently; she’d drifted off on his shoulder. Hadn't dreamed. “Babe? Hey. We’re here.” She sat up, grimacing, her neck stiff and sore.

The drive to her parents’ place was quiet. Tension sat thick between them in the back of the cab.

Her parents were what might once have been called a handsome couple, both tall and elegant in their early sixties. Greeted them at the door, a round of hugs and hellos. “Alexander,” her mother said, offered her cheek for him to kiss, “it’s so good to see you -”

“It’s Alex, Catherine, please,” Alex told her, breezy, like he did every time; she politely ignored this, like she did every time.

 

*

 

**April 2010**

 

“Are you angry?” She felt very young. It hadn't been so many years since she'd asked her mother that, in that tone.

Catherine sighed. “Not angry. Just…”

“Disappointed?” She couldn't quite keep the sarcasm out of it, which earned her a reproachful look.

“Concerned. You're so young, Liza. There's no need to rush --”

“I love him,” she interrupted, stubbornly.

“I know, love, but you're - you don't even have a ring,” Catherine pointed out, which was true. A moment's tense silence, which she broke with another sigh. Craned her neck to look out the kitchen window. “Your father's putting the fear of God in him, it looks like.”

Her father had taken Alex aside barely five minutes after they'd shared the news - “let’s take a walk,” he’d said, genially enough but not really leaving room for refusal. Eliza was frankly mortified but Alex had quelled her half-formed protest, kissed her cheek and quietly assured her it was fine. Now the two of them were out in the yard, jackets unzipped in the wet, mild afternoon. Alex was nervous, passing his mug of tea from hand to hand but listening intently to whatever her father was saying. Little furrow in his brow, the hems of his jeans damp from the grass, rough around the edges compared to the distinguished figure her father cut.

Eliza turned back to her mother. “Alex thinks you and Daddy don't like him.” She was careful to keep it neutral, keep the accusatory note out of her voice.

“We barely know him.” The implication clear, the statement unfinished: _and neither do you._ “How long have you been seeing him? Eight months?”

“Almost a year, now.” They'd met in some bar in Brooklyn, bad gin and a worse band, his friends watching them from across the room. One drink turned into two turned into a night and a day spent in her apartment, moving from bed to shower to kitchen and back to bed. Fucking and making out lazy, endless, and talking, talking, talking. Standing on her doorstep he'd said _see you around, lovely lady,_ grinned crookedly at her. She couldn't resist leaning in to kiss him one more time, and then he'd walked away backward, facing her, smiling, until he hit the corner and had to turn.

“And you're sure about him, Liza?”

“I am,” she said, reached across the table to squeeze her mother's hand for a brief second, who smiled, soft. They turned again together to watch her father finish whatever he'd been pontificating about and fall silent for a brief moment. And then he was sticking his hand out for Alex to shake; Alex took it and shook and grinned, relieved, elated.

Alex took her home and fucked her for ages, hours, laid out on her bed, worshiped with fingers and tongue and teeth. Laughing and kissing her ceaselessly, saying _I love you, I love you, you're so beautiful, I love you so much, God, Betsey._

 _I deserve this,_ Eliza thought, in a haze. _I deserve to feel this good, always._

 

*

 

**present day**

 

After a cup of tea and the requisite round of catching up they tramped upstairs to change and drop their bags in Eliza’s bedroom, a room she hadn’t lived in since she was eighteen. It was untouched, a monument to her younger self: robin’s egg blue walls, a dozen throw pillows on the bed, bookshelf packed with dusty paperbacks (two battered copies of _The Bell Jar_ side by side, Neruda, Angelou). Corkboard on the wall above the white-painted desk, covered in polaroids of Peggy and Angelica, movie tickets, faded pencil sketches her high school boyfriend had done.

Alex sat on the edge of the bed, fidgeted, picked up one of the pillows in its floral case and hugged it. “Betsey,” he said, weary, halting. “I - “ And her phone chirped, loudly enough to cut him off.

A text from Angelica: _ten minutes!!_

 _:) :) :),_ she texted back, looked back up at Alex. “Ange and John are on their way.”

He smiled; it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Great.”

John and Angelica arrived with much fanfare, each sweeping her up in a bone-crunching hug one after the other. Eliza had the briefest flicker of fear that Angelica might be - off somehow, with Alex, but it didn’t happen. Angelica didn’t betray a thing, hugged Alex and kissed his cheek same as she ever had. John fielded the usual round of questions from his in-laws, how was the flight (long), who’s got the kids (friends of theirs in London had very graciously agreed to take them in for the weekend), you must be exhausted (they were), Alex chiming in here and there. Angelica took Eliza’s hands in both of hers, pulled her aside. “How are you?” she asked, seriously.

“I’ve been better,” Eliza admitted, quietly. “I’m not really - prepared. For this. For any of it.”

Angelica’s brow creased and she sighed, pulled Eliza into her arms again and held her tight. “You’re gonna be okay. I believe that.”

Eliza swallowed the lump in her throat, murmured, “thanks, Ange,” and when she glanced over at him Alex was watching them.

 

*

 

The family arrived in droves over the next day or so. Eliza hugged and kissed and made small talk with relatives she hadn't seen in years; every time she saw Peggy she was on the phone with the caterers or the decorators or any number of others. Alex turned on the charm, gave nothing away; Angelica carefully avoided him, Eliza noticed. They only seemed to speak when they had the buffer of another person around, not directly to each other. She might not have noticed if she hadn't been watching for it, but it was jarring, a world apart from the easy friendship they'd always had.

She spent yet another night lying awake, staring at the ceiling in frustration, sweating and exhausted and irritated, unused to Alex next to her after weeks of sleeping apart.

“Are you up?” she whispered, after a time, though she was sure he was.

“Yeah,” Alex murmured, turned over to face her. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just. Can't sleep.” She sighed, pushed her hair back, sat up. Looked at Alex. “Will you read to me?”

They hadn't done this in months; if he was surprised he didn't show it. “Yeah, I'm - yeah. Of course I will.” He rolled out of bed, flicked the lamp on, crouched for a moment in his boxers in front of her bookcase. Came back to her with a slim paperback; she settled back into the pillows while he paged through it, cleared his throat. “ _Whoever you are holding me now in hand,”_ he said _, “without one thing all will be useless. I give you fair warning before you attempt me further…”_

He went on like that, for a while, quiet and steady. She put her head on his thigh and listened, fell asleep to his voice. “ _For I am the new husband and I am the comrade…”_

She woke to knocking, Peggy’s voice on the other side of the door. “Breakfast is ready, are you getting up?”

Eliza, usually the morning person, stuck her head under her pillow and groaned. “Yeah, thanks, Peg,” Alex called, raspy with sleep. Eliza peeked out from under her pillow: sunlight slanting through the blinds, the bedside lamp still on, dog-eared book tented on Alex’s chest. She felt suddenly, unaccountably awkward. And ill. Stumbled to the guest bathroom down the hall, threw up, silently cursed God, came back. Alex was up, barefoot, jeans and a t-shirt. “Morning,” he said, quietly; he was fiddling with his watch, didn't quite meet her eyes.

The room was warm already, the day promising to be unseasonably hot. She put on a sundress, no bra, no makeup, and they went down to breakfast. Everyone else had gathered in the kitchen already, her parents side-by-side at the stove. She suppressed another cold wave of nausea at the spread: pancakes, bacon, eggs, fresh fruit.

Eliza discreetly passed the mimosa she'd been offered to Alex, picked at a bagel, listened to the rowdy hum of conversation around them. Alex making faces at their little nephew across the table. Twice Peggy got up to field phone calls.

They mostly dispersed after breakfast, headed outside to enjoy the day. Eliza stuck around to help her parents with the dishes, patiently scrubbed butter and grease and maple syrup off the stack of plates. “Are you alright, you look tired,” her mother said, after a time.

“I look like shit, you mean.” It came out harsher than she’d intended.

“No, I meant you look tired, Liza. Did you not sleep well?”

Eliza sighed. “Not really. Just - hot, I guess.”

They finished up and she went upstairs to get the novel she’d been trying to finish; considered, picked up the book of poems instead. She went to join the rest of the family in the backyard; the heat so thick as to feel solid. The adults had clustered around the patio table in the meager shade the umbrella provided - save Alex, who was rolling around in the grass with the handful of kids present, Peggy’s son, their cousins’ kids. He had little Stephen upside down by his ankles, red-faced and giggling.

She took a seat at the table and a glass of iced tea when they were offered, wanted very much to read and try to ignore the sounds of Alex fooling around behind her. It was a little adolescent, she supposed, to sit with a yard full of people and have her nose in a book, recalled any number of times she’d done this exact thing in high school, but she didn’t much care. The words swam on the page, not quite enough to distract her from the conversations happening around her: sports, work, kids, what everyone was binge-watching on Netflix. She admitted defeat, eventually, turned to see Alex sprawled out on the grass with his hands over his face, wailing dramatically that he was too old to keep playing, the kids had tired him out. This declaration was met with a burst of giggles and protests but he got up and came over to the table without incident, leaned over Eliza’s chair to snag her iced tea. He had a grass stain on his sleeve.

“I think you’re popular,” Eliza’s father noted, wry.

“I accept my rightful status as fun uncle,” Alex said with gravitas, and grinned. Took his hair down from its messy knot and started trying to fix it.

“You  know…” her mother started, meaningfully, cocked a brow. Alex froze, Eliza froze, a moment of sheer silent panic at this conversational turn that felt long, too long, but her father said, “Katie,” all good-natured exasperation. “I didn’t say anything,” Catherine demurred, shook her head. Alex pulled his hair back and the conversation moved on, to that evening, how beautiful the party was expected to be, how hard Peggy had worked to make it so (Peggy affected modesty, but she was proud of herself, Eliza could tell).

Alex stood beside her and laid his hand lightly on the back of her neck, the kind of casual touch that had been so scarce these past however many weeks. His fingers were cold from the glass.

 

*

 

Day rolled into evening and it hadn’t cooled off, not really, too hot to think. Eliza put an oscillating fan in her room but it didn’t seem to do much, the window open to tempt a nonexistent breeze. Her shower was quick and cool. If the thought of blow-drying her hair and putting on a lined dress made her skin crawl the reality was worse. She berated herself for dreading the whole night, still feeling like a teenager. “Zip me up?” she asked, standing in front of the mirror. Alex did so, brushed her hair over her shoulder; they took a moment to look at their reflection. Alex in a suit was a rare sight: he looked sharp, her mother would have said.

She turned around and he said, soft, “you look nice,” reached to fix her necklace. She braced a hand on his shoulder to step into her shoes.

“You, too,” she said after a moment. His mouth twitched like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to smile.

 

 

A couple of hours later Eliza kissed so many cheeks she had to fix her lipstick twice, old friends and relatives and acquaintances alike. The dining room’s French doors stood open, people spilling into the yard, a drink in every hand. Forty, it transpired, was the ruby anniversary; touches of red stood out here and there, the napkins, the centerpieces. A glass of wine had been pressed into her hand the second they'd gotten downstairs; at least if she was already holding a drink nobody would offer her one. She’d started feeling sticky almost instantly, sweat sticking the lining of her dress to her back.

Peggy looked like she was close to tearing her hair out but hiding it pretty admirably; her parents floated around together to say their hellos, tall and black-clad, a matched set. John and Angelica the parallel, twenty-five years younger; Eliza suppressed the ugly twist of envy in her chest. Alex at her elbow, some dark liquor in hand, whiskey probably. “Ah, fuck,” he muttered in her ear, suddenly, his disgust unchecked. “Is that Aaron Burr. Why is he _here._ ”

“Stop,” Eliza murmured, “be nice.” She was trying not to laugh, though, and Alex caught it like blood in the water.

“He’s like - that kid in high school that everybody only pretended to like. Your mom probably made Peg invite him out of pity. Well, I’ll be busy that weekend, organizing my sock drawer -”

“Alex, oh my god -”

“ - you know, he probably cuts loose a little, wears navy instead of black on Saturdays, just for fun -”

“He’s coming over here, shut up - “

Alex managed to school his expression into something resembling pleasant surprise as Aaron reached them, pulled him into the half-hug typical of men pretending to like each other. “Aaron Burr, as I live and breathe. How’s it going, man?”

“Very well, Alexander, thanks. Eliza, good to see you,” he said and took her hand in the annoying, delicate clutch she’d come to expect from him.

“You, too,” she said, on autopilot, wondered vaguely how quickly she could extricate herself without being rude. Aaron answered this question for her immediately, turned just slightly more toward Alex and asked about his novel, more than a little pointed. She offered a half-assed “excuse me” and left them to their posturing, more or less unnoticed. Did a lap, managed to have a nice enough conversation with Theo, who had all the charm her husband lacked. Eliza nursed her wine and smiled, smiled; laughed at her father’s friends’ jokes, ended up on the edge of things with Angelica. She was trying to be subtle about it, but Angelica’s gaze kept flicking over to Alex, who was still caught up with Aaron; her expression one of barely concealed distaste.

“I don’t get it,” Angelica told her quietly. “I don’t get how he can just - be here.”

“He was invited, Ange.” She was wary, prayed Angelica would just drop it.

“If it were me,” Angelica murmured, a statement. Eliza had a sudden vision of Angelica ten years younger, lipstick-smeared cigarette in her hand instead of the wine glass she had now. Declaiming at length on one of Eliza’s forgettable college boyfriends, nice enough but a flake; Eliza had been complaining that he’d left her hanging when they’d had plans. _Why are you telling me this,_ Angelica had said. _Go give him hell. You’re too nice for your own good, Liza._

She didn’t want to stand there and listen to that, not this time. She excused herself, abruptly, ignoring the look on her sister’s face. Squeezed through the crowd in the dining room to find the kitchen mercifully empty, sat down at the island and took a minute to breathe deep, will away the frustration prickling at the back of her neck.

“You okay?” She startled; turned to find John leaning against the doorframe. “Shit, sorry - “

“No, fuck, it’s fine, I just. Needed a minute.”

John winced, sympathetically. “I know, it’s getting claustrophobic out there. If I have to listen to one more crack about the weather in England I’m leaving.” She chuckled in spite of herself. “You seen Ange recently?”

“I was just talking to her, she’s - somewhere. I lost Alex, too, God knows whose ear he’s talking off now.”

John came a little closer, shot a furtive glance over his shoulder, cleared his throat. “Hey, uh, about Alex,” he started, in low tones - because he knew, of course he knew.

“John, look, I don’t want to get into this right now, really -”

And as if on cue she was cut off by Angelica’s voice, coming through the open doors clear as day: “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

_Fuck._

She and John exchanged a look of perfect understanding and she got to her feet, pushed through the dining room with John behind her. They made it back into the yard to see Alex and Angelica glaring at each other, tense; Eliza realized with a cold, creeping horror just how drunk they both were. “What’s that supposed to mean?” The glass in Alex’s hand was empty but for half-melted ice, his jaw set.

“Daddy was right about you.” Angelica was one of those rare people who got more articulate, more composed the more they drank. Panic rooted Eliza to the spot; heads were starting to turn, bemused. Angelica arched one perfect brow. “We all were. God knows what my sister sees in you -”

“Oh, here we go,” Alex was nearly shouting, zero to sixty in a second, vicious, “tell me how you really feel, Ange. Look me in the fucking face and tell me I’m not _good enough_ to have married a _Schuyler sister."_

John at Angelica’s shoulder, quiet and tense: “Ange, that’s enough,” but she waved him off. Started anew as Eliza got her leaden limbs to cooperate, caught Alex around the wrist and tried, fruitlessly, to pull him in the direction of the house; he didn’t even acknowledge her, wouldn’t move.

“I think you’re a liar and a cheater and a fucking hack, _Alexander,_ ” Angelica said, cold, preternaturally calm. “Since you asked. And I’m sure you’ll be a deadbeat, too - some things just run in the family, don’t they -”

“Fuck you, Angelica,” Alex shot back, furious and disbelieving and entirely too loudly. Gestured expansively with the glass he was holding; an ice cube flew ridiculously out of it to land somewhere in the grass. “You fucking _bitch._ ”

This sent a low, scandalized murmur through the assembled guests, every one of whom was watching now. “Alex,” Eliza heard herself saying, a steady, repetitive trail, loud to her ears compared to the utter silence that had fallen around them. “Stop, Alex, just go inside, just shut up, please -”

“Fine, fuck, I’m going,” he muttered, allowed her to haul him gracelessly into the house; she caught a glimpse of her parents, stone-faced. Alex didn’t fight her all the way up to the bedroom, sat down heavy on the edge of the bed. Disheveled and red-faced, he was still holding the glass, laid his other hand over his eyes. “Christ, Bets, I can’t fucking believe -”

“Shut up, Alex,” she said, and he looked up at her, recoiled as if she’d slapped him. She kind of wanted to slap him; was abruptly, utterly exhausted. “I don’t want to hear it. Just - just. Shut the fuck up, for once.”

“Fine,” he mumbled after a moment, weary. A beat, staring at each other. “I hate this,” he said, suddenly, plaintive. “I can’t fucking stand it, I just - I miss you.”

“I’m right here, babe.” He didn’t seem to have anything to say to that. “Just - have some water. Sleep it off.”

His eyes were wet. He dropped his gaze to the worn carpet and when she turned to go he didn’t try to stop her.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Morning came. She left Alex half-dressed and dead asleep in bed next to her and went downstairs for coffee.

Last night she had shut herself in the bathroom for a brief, hard cry, fixed her makeup and gone back out. Didn’t say a word about what had just happened to anyone and they did the same. A palpable tension hung in the yard; though it dissipated over the course of the evening it didn’t disappear entirely. She hadn’t seen Angelica and assumed she and John had played out a similar scene.

Her parents were the only ones in the kitchen when she came in. Eliza poured herself a cup and sat down at the island and sure enough - “How far along are you?” her mother asked, evenly.

“Eleven, twelve weeks. My first prenatal thing is Thursday.” All at once she could feel the tears welling up again, tried to keep them at bay and failed. “I’m sorry,” she said, helplessly, voice cracking. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t - he’s not supposed to drink on his meds, I shouldn’t have -”

“Hey, hey,” and her father was coming around to her, put his arms around her. She couldn’t stand it, didn’t want his pity, his understanding, his protection. Leaned into him and wept anyway. She waited for his anger, the threat to kick Alex’s ass clear into Pennsylvania, but it didn’t come. “Don’t apologize for him,” he said, quiet but firm. Held her for some interminable minutes while his shirt dampened under her cheek. Finally the tide receded and she straightened up, swiped at her eyes; a black smudge of last night’s makeup came off on the back of her hand. “Do you want to stay here?”

For a brief second she considered it, considered letting Alex go back to the city alone. Not telling him when she was coming back, finding a doctor here. “No, I - we should go. Home.”

Her mother read her mind. “We’ll tell your sisters goodbye. Don’t hang around if you don’t want to. Angelica - well. You know what she’s like.”

She laughed, watery. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

Alex bade her parents a stiff, awkward goodbye. He and Eliza didn’t say a word to each other until they were in the cab. “I’m not coming with you,” she told him quietly, in front of the train station.

“What?” He was halfway out of the car, sat back down and turned to her.

“I don’t wanna be around you. For a couple of days at least. I’m getting a hotel room.”

He stared at her, stricken. “Babe. You’re not serious, come on.”

“I’ll see you at home,” she said. The cab driver was eyeing them in the rearview, wary.

“What are you doing,” Alex said, pleading outright. “You can’t just - let’s just go, okay.” She wasn’t moving, and off her look he kept going: “Can we please just - go home, I’ll make dinner and we can talk - don’t, Eliza, Jesus Christ, don’t look at me like that.” A beat. “Come on. Come home with me, please.”

She kept steady. “I’ll see you in a couple days, Alex.”

Alex bit his lip, opened his mouth to speak again and the driver intervened, turned around. “Alright, man, that’s enough -”

“It’s okay, thanks, he’s going -”

“Fuck, okay, it’s fine, I’m done, I’m going.” Alex got out of the car, shouldered his duffel, paused for a second. Turned around, tucked a lock of hair behind his ear, a nervous habit. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.” Alex didn’t quite slam the door. She watched him turn around and go, felt her resolve starting to crumble but she couldn’t, wouldn’t fold. She refused.

“You alright, hon?” the driver asked her after a minute. She had five or six tiny silver studs in one ear, none in the other; deep crow’s feet around her eyes and a voice like she’d smoked a pack a day for decades.

“Yeah. Thanks - yeah. Could you recommend a hotel, by any chance?”

 

*

 

She’d no sooner set her bag down in her room than her phone chirped, a text from Adrienne. _Alex is at our place. he says you stayed at yr parents?_

Shit. Work had completely slipped her mind. _Yeah, I wanted to spend a little more time w my sister before she goes home. i spaced, i’m sorry. are you gonna be ok without me?_

_well, my espresso is never as good as yours but I think I can hold the fort :)_

_thanks girl. i owe you one._

She took a shower, a long one. Considered herself in the fogged-up mirror afterward, the cloud of jasmine-scented steam. Freckles on her face and shoulders, a scar on her forearm from the curling iron a couple of years before. Split ends that needed a trim. Her nails were shredded, too, from dealing with boxes at work, dishes, cleaning the espresso machine. Maybe she’d do something about that tomorrow.  

She didn’t bother getting dressed, wrapped herself up in the plush robe she found hanging in the closet. Curled up on the bed, her hair soaking the pillows, checked her emails, tried to read. She’d taken the Whitman book from her parents’ house without noticing. If she was being honest with herself, she didn’t quite know what to do, hadn’t had more than a day or two at a time off work since… since she’d opened, actually. Hadn’t taken a vacation save a Hamptons weekend with Alex the previous summer. Before she could think too hard about it she crafted an email to her sister.

_Peg - just wanted to say I’m sorry about last night. I don’t know what it is with Alex sometimes, honestly. I hate that I let us fuck it up with our private stuff, it really was a lovely party. Talk soon. xo, E._

Well. It didn’t sound entirely sincere, but it was better than nothing. She was at a loss as to Angelica. A twinge of guilt at not having stayed to say goodbye, and then she thought about the hard set of her sister’s mouth, that she’d said the kinds of things she couldn’t hope to unsay. _Daddy was right about you. We all were._

 

_*_

 

Eliza hadn’t brought enough clothes with her to last another four days and took that as the flimsy excuse it was to shop the next day. Made a morning of it, got her hair trimmed and her nails done, too. Noon saw her settled in a creaking armchair in a coffee shop with a frankly excellent cold brew and a sandwich. Considered texting Alex just to check in, make sure he’d eaten - he hadn’t texted last night like he usually did when they were away from each other, just to say good night. The apartment was sure to be in a state when she got home, the way his place had been when they’d first met: empty takeout boxes on the counter, laundry on the floor. Coffee mug for an ashtray on the balcony, remains of the joint he’d smoked, or the cigarettes he’d been trying for years to kick, smoked on and off. _See, look what a mess I am without you._

She relished the cold air in her hotel room when she got back, had left the fan cranked high so she could comfortably get under the blankets. The room was deceptively big, cozy for its size, dark blue and burnt orange, dark wood. The bed was entirely too big and a little too soft for her liking but she’d slept like a rock. She stripped down to her underwear and got in bed, lay there for a while. Relished the space, the solitude, the weight of the covers. Faint bleach smell from the fresh bedclothes, not overpowering; she’d always liked that, the feeling of bare skin on cool, clean sheets.

She passed one hand over her belly, featherlight, back and forth until her nails raised goosebumps, and a little lower - hip, inside of one thigh. She felt good, clean and refreshed from a day of taking care of herself in a way she hadn’t gotten to do for a while. Trailed her fingers back up, a little more purposefully, caught the waistband of her panties and worked them down. Stuck her fingers in her mouth for a second, winced at the brief taste of lotion and acetone from the salon, back down, light over her clit. Alex sprang to mind, him touching her like this in any number of places, hotels like this one, every room of their apartment. His hands bigger than hers, callused. She couldn’t really separate the fact of him from this but he drifted anyway, his customary low-voiced stream of filth faded out and she didn’t think of anything, anyone, not really. Kicked the blankets down when they started to feel hot, claustrophobic, reached down and slipped the fingers of her other hand into herself, kept at her clit. Conscious of the room’s paper-thin walls and she wasn’t usually loud but muffled a cry in the pillow when she came, rode out a twitchy, easy wave of a climax and fell back panting. Sheet damp underneath her, fingers slick, thighs slick, she lay there for a while and stared at the wall. Breathed. Didn’t think about anything.

She found the day passing in fits and starts; the movie she tried to watch dragged but she napped for twice as long as she’d meant to and woke up disoriented. Got her bearings and decided it was late enough to justify dinner, put on one of the dresses she’d bought that morning, and the perfume. She spent a few minutes googling and found a restaurant a couple of blocks east that looked promising.

She enjoyed the walk, short as it was. The hostess at the restaurant flickered surprise when she said she was alone, wasn’t meeting anyone, but let it go, sat her in a booth. The website had described the place, meaninglessly, as “urban casual,” but it was charming despite that, low lighting, high ceilings. Mostly empty on a Monday night.

The meal - lamb shank, beet salad, panna cotta - was excellent, enough to distract her from her phone for a while. Radio silence from everyone still, Peggy, Angelica, Alex. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

When she was finished she went through to the lounge, took a seat at the bar. It was emptier even than the dining room, just her and the bartender and a couple of others. She asked for a Shirley Temple without really knowing why; a fit of nostalgia maybe, for the many and endless parties her parents had thrown when she was young, Angelica sneaking vodka up to her bedroom or out on the patio.

“You alone tonight?” the bartender asked her, pleasantly enough, slid her glass and a coaster in front of her. He was cute, she supposed, probably a little older than he looked, messy-haired in a deliberate kind of way.

“I am,” she said lightly and he didn’t press her.

The drink wasn’t nearly as good as the food had been, watered down and too sweet; she drank it anyway. A song she vaguely recognized playing low from the speaker behind the bar, _I am on a lonely road and I am traveling traveling traveling._

A voice from somewhere to her left: “Eliza?”

She turned, reflexively, and - Maria Reynolds sat a few seats down. “Maria,” she heard herself say. “Uh. Hi.”

Maria shot a furtive glance at the door and back to her, her eyes searching Eliza’s own. “Are you - are you here alone?”

“Yes,” Eliza said, and then, “are you?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, ran a hand through her hair and then pushed it underneath her thigh, presumably so Eliza wouldn’t catch the tremble. She looked good, better than Eliza remembered, if a little thinner. Wine-coloured dress, delicate gold chain around her neck; the hand that Eliza could see didn’t have a wedding ring on it. She spared a second to think something ugly about Alex and his Type. A beat, and she wanted to laugh, because what the fuck could she say? And Maria threw the words out, suddenly: “I left James.”

Eliza didn’t know what to say to that, either. So, instead: “I’m pregnant.”

Maria blinked at her. When she spoke again she wasn’t looking Eliza in the eye, focused on her hands on the bartop. “You know,” she started, and paused. “You know Alex was giving me money?” His name sounded strange from her mouth. Her gaze flicked back up; Eliza couldn’t imagine what her face was doing but whatever it was made it clear to Maria that no, she hadn’t known. Her mouth quirked. “Not a lot, or anything - just. A few bucks when I told him I needed it, food or cigarettes or whatever. Cash. So I saved it, what I could, and.” She shrugged, affected nonchalance and didn’t entirely succeed in it. “Here we are.”

“Have you heard from him?” Eliza asked before she could stop herself. “From Alex? Recently?”

Maria considered her. “Which answer do you want to hear?”

 _The honest one,_ she thought, and backtracked. “No, I'm - never mind. I don't want to know.”

“You're not stuck,” Maria said, as if that was a natural response to that statement. Perhaps encouraged by Eliza's silence she continued, “not that - I mean, if you feel like you are. You’re not. I thought I was, too. But now I’m here, and James isn’t.” She seemed very calm.

Eliza wanted to protest, wrong-footed, caught utterly off guard by the sheer strangeness of the situation. Took a drink for want of something to do with her hands; the clink of her wedding ring against the glass felt loud. Maria stood to leave. “You won't,” she said, suddenly hesitant, “James doesn't - he can't know where I am -”

“Oh - no, fuck. Jesus, no, I won’t say anything.” It didn’t seem like enough, but she meant it. Maria came to her, close enough to touch. Reached a hand out, stopped, tried again. Maria leaned in, rested her fingers lightly on Eliza’s arm and kissed her on the cheek.

“I hope you get what you want,” Maria told her, soft. “I'll see you around, Eliza.” And she turned and left without a backward glance.

Eliza sat there long enough that the ice in her drink melted. She drank it anyway, cloying sweetness heavy on her tongue.

 

*

 

She stopped by the shop before she went home. Putting it off. Adrienne caught her up, not that there was much to tell; they'd gotten through the last few days with no major incident. Came out from behind the counter to hug her, took Eliza's hands in hers and asked with characteristic bluntness, “What's wrong with Alex? He was miserable the other night, but he wouldn't tell us anything.”

She settled for a half-truth. “He just - had too much to drink at my parents’ thing. Embarrassed himself.”

“If I had a nickel,” Adrienne said, solemnly.

 

*

 

The walk to their apartment felt longer than normal. She lingered with a hand on the doorknob, took a breath; wasn't sure what she was expecting to find.

What she found was the living room windows and balcony door standing open to tempt the breeze, afternoon sun slanting across the carpet. Miles Davis playing low from Alex’s laptop on the coffee table, a stack of clean laundry neatly folded on the couch. The smell of something cooking, garlic and spices; she dropped her bags and followed it into the kitchen. Alex had his back to her, startled when she spoke. “Hi, babe.”

He turned, wiped his hands absently on the dishtowel hanging out of his back pocket. “Bets,” he said, “you're home. Hi.” He looked for a moment like he didn't know what to do with himself, took a step toward her and hesitated, like she might stop him.

“Come here,” she said, soft, and with relief written all over his face he went to her, took her in his arms. Eliza pressed her cheek to his chest and inhaled his familiar scent, curled her fingers in his ancient, ratty Columbia shirt.

“I missed you,” he murmured into her hair, just that. In spite of it all she’d missed him too and said so. She could tell when he was lying, wheedling, trying to angle for something; she’d seen him do it a thousand times and he wasn’t now. It was just something he wanted her to know.

  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hate that this took so long! but here we are.
> 
> some things: the poem alex reads in chapter two is walt whitman's [whoever you are holding me now in hand](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/49204).
> 
> this fic takes its title from a [beautiful song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LgQhfusf_E) by joanna newsom. if you have six minutes to kill i highly recommend lying on your couch, putting your headphones on, listening, & thinking about your entire life & all your choices & every single time you have ever been sad.
> 
> this fic wouldn't exist without the advice & indulgence of [digitalis](http://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalis/pseuds/digitalis), [audenrain](http://archiveofourown.org/users/audenrain/pseuds/audenrain), [peakgay](http://archiveofourown.org/users/peakgay/pseuds/peakgay), & [poose](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Poose/pseuds/Poose).
> 
> i'm on tumblr at [youbuiltcathedrals](http://www.youbuiltcathedrals.tumblr.com). come say hi. comments feed my family, water my crops, &c.


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